Crosses To Bear
by SuperNova23
Summary: To heal is to hurt. To restore is to invite pain. There's no two ways around it. (Co-Written with Ari Moriarty)
1. Chapter 1

**Hey everyone! This was conceived when I asked my friend Ari "Do you think it hurts to have injuries healed with magic considering the biology behind it?" She agreed, and this little nugget was born. This chapter was all her, mine will be up soon. Read her fics too, because I love them.**

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"Ahh!" screamed Minako, as a rampaging shadow knocked her backwards on to the ground. From where she was standing at the other side of their formation, Yukari could already see blood oozing out of the place on Minako's arm where it had slammed hard into the floor. By the way it was hanging, it looked like it might be broken.

Yukari bit her lip. She hated the sight of blood.

"Arisato!" Mitsuru was already running over to her, with Artemisia poised to perform a spell. "Diarahan," said Mitsuru. As the spell began its work on Minako's arm, Yukari watched her friend writhing in pain, the arm contorting back and forth as Minako tried to use her other hand to hold it steady.

"It hurts," she gasped, shaking her head and pulling the arm back out of spell range. "I'm sorry…it's just…"

Mitsuru gave Minako a withering look. "I need you to be strong," she informed her, in that barely tolerant tone of voice that Yukari had heard her use most often with Junpei. "Without your co-operation I will be unable to heal the injury to your arm, and then you'll be less than useless in a battle."

"Come on, senpai," begged Yukari. "Can't she just sit the rest of this one out?"

Mitsuru turned her expression on Yukari, who did her best not to quail underneath it. "Certainly not," she said. "It is important that we learn to function properly as an effective team."

Minako was struggling her way on to her feet, cradling her arm against her chest as she prepared Orpheus for another attack. "I'm fine," she insisted. "Really, I'm okay. Let's just…"

"Diarahan," said Mitsuru again. Again, she attempted the spell on Minako's arm, and Minako, wincing at the pain of having her bones suddenly trying to reset themselves, jerked back and stumbled, losing her footing and ending up on the ground.

Yukari rolled her eyes. "Jeez, Mitsuru-senpai," she muttered under her breath. "Now look what you've done…"

Unfortunately, she didn't say it quite quietly enough, and Mitsuru's raised eyebrows made it clear that she'd heard exactly what Yukari had said.

"Uh oh," muttered Minako. "Busted…"

"If you are unimpressed with my performance as a healer, Takeba," began Mitsuru icily, "then perhaps you would like to take over the mending of Arisato's arm?"

Yukari and Minako exchanged a look. "Uh, of course," muttered Yukari. "Here, uh, Diarama."

Minako writhed in pain, and Yukari had to look away. As soon as she broke eye contact, the spell fizzled out and left Minako panting on the ground.

"Focus, Takeba," demanded Mitsuru sharply.

"Um…" Yukari had just realized exactly how much blood there was coming out of the wound. "Hey, wait, we should probably tie that up with something, or…so it doesn't bleed out, I mean."

"Bleed out?" asked Minako in horror.

Mitsuru shook her head. "It won't 'bleed out' as you say if you just stop talking about it and heal it already!"

Yukari threw up her hands. "What am I supposed to do?" she asked. "I can't make her hold still. I can't like, hold her down while I'm trying to heal her."

Mitsuru seemed to think about that for a moment. "Iori!" she called suddenly, glancing over to where Junpei was now struggling to defeat a shadow without the aid of any of the rest of his three party members. "Come here and hold Arisato down for us."

"Little busy here," shouted Junpei, as he sent Tristmagistus flaming forward at the shadow. "Seriously, are you guys done yet? I could really use some help…"

Suddenly, the shadow darted forward and lashed out at Minako with one claw. Already down and distracted, she was an easy target, and the shadow managed to open up a gash across her forehead, right above her eyes.

"Oh god, ow…" she whispered, going white. "Please, somebody, do something…"

"Diarama!" shouted Yukari. This time, the spell took effect. Yukari had to watch as the skin around the forehead wound seeped slowly over to cover the damage. It was horrible to watch. Little drops of blood oozed out of the wound, even as it closed.

"I think I'm gonna be sick…" muttered Yukari.

Minako looked slightly indignant. "You're going to be sick?" she asked. "Why are you going to be sick when I'm the one who got injured?"

"Hey, you didn't see it," insisted Yukari.

"No," agreed Minako, "no, I _felt_ it! And it _really _did not feel good."

Yukari shrugged. "But it feels better now, right?"

"Hey!" shouted Junpei. "Ladies? Really? This is so not a good time!"

Yukari looked away from Minako to see that Junpei was now pinned up against the wall by the shadow, which seemed to be doing its best to sink a pair of fangs into his face. Yukari froze for a split second, then opened her mouth and began to cast a wind spell that she hoped would sweep the shadow away from Junpei and maybe even off of its feet.

Minako, however, got there first. Grabbing a gem out of her pocket with the one hand that didn't hurt, she lobbed it full-force at the shadow, which erupted into a dazzling electric ball of lighting and shadow essence.

In the stillness that followed, everyone breathed out a long sigh of relief.

"Wow, Mina-tan," muttered Junpei. "Just in the nick of time, too…"

Struggling to her feet, Minako winced and stumbled over to where there was now a persona card lying on the floor. She tried to reach down to pick it up, but discovered that she couldn't successfully balance her weight and hold up her broken arm with her good one at the same time.

"Hey," she said. "Can somebody get that for me? My arm is still broken."

Mitsuru raised a hand to try, yet again, to cast the Diarahan spell. "Hold still this time," she sighed, pushing back a curl and taking an exasperated breath.


	2. Chapter 2

**This is my chapter, covering two of the P4 healers. I have less dialog and try to go more into their psyche, but I hope you enjoy anyway.**

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Yosuke stood tall as he, Yu and Chie stared down the knight Shadow Yukiko's Shadow had left for them to fight. They bravely surrounded it to try and fight it.

Ten seconds later, that was looking like an awful idea.

Yu had Izanagi out, buffing himself, making himself stringer and weakening the knight, while Chie and Tomoe were just whaling on it. And then it reared up and skewered Chie. She tried to move aside, but her hand quickly flew to her shoulder as Yosuke say red liquid start to seep out of the wound. In response to her master's pain, Tomoe began to flicker, having trouble keeping physical form.

"Yosuke! Heal her!" There was Yu, the leader. He knew what to do, but Yosuke couldn't. He didn't want to subject her to that. So he threw her one of the bottles of medicine he and Yu had brought with them. It was just some herbal concoction to staunch bleeding wounds, but was mostly painkillers, since it had to act fast.

She downed the bottle in one gulp. "Thanks! Now I'm not gonna let this guy keep us from Yukiko!" Her Persona became more solid as she refocused on it. "Bufu!"

The Knight was hurt by the spike of ice and attacked her again. Neither he nor Yu had enough time to warn her as she delivered a second attack and the lance went into her leg. Now not only was her weapon disabled, she couldn't walk at all. "Chie! Are you alright" He asked in concern.

She tried to stand and immediately collapsed. "I... Don't know. I think my leg's broken, and I can't use my left arm." She said weakly.

Yu began to whale on the Shadow to draw it's attention. He was hopelessly outmatched and he knew this. "Yosuke, heal her up!"

"R-Right Partner!" He said, moving over to her. He broke his card, Jiraiya coming to his aid. "Alright, Chie. Just hold still. This might sting a bit." He closed his eyes as he whispered, "Dia."

An ear-piercing scream echoed throughout the castle.

Yosuke kept up the healing as Chie's leg bones were forced back into proper alignment and new connective tissue was forced to grow to hold it together. Once she was able to walk, he said, "Okay, I'm going to leave your shoulder for after. That took a lot out of me."

That was only a partial truth. While the healing was easy and barely took any energy at all, seeing and hearing Chie in pain as he held her leg still was almost too much for him.

Once the Shadow was done, they were all bleeding, battered and bruised. "At least our injuries can all be hidden, right?" Yu said as he looked them over.

"Er.. Not quite..." Chie said, her lame arm dangling and her hole in her shoulder freshly scabbed over. Yosuke swallowed the bile that was threatening to rise out of his throat. Without the adrenaline of battle, this was a million times worse. Luckily, Chie didn't scream as her shoulder was rebuilt, but she bit her lip so hard it drew blood, which was the last thing he healed on her.

* * *

Yukiko followed behind the others as they made their way through the pixelated game world. The world born from the heart of the killer, Mitsuo Kubo; in an attempt to evade justice, he had gone into the TV. And here she was, trying to catch him. Ahead of her went Yu, Chie and Kanji.

She remembered she was happy to help them catch the killer, but that was before she knew what her Persona did. She was a medic. A healer. She was far too kind-hearted for this. Why had Yu chosen her over Teddie or even Yosuke? Deep down, she knew why.

She was the best healer.

She was the best at bringing pain.

Her train of thought was derailed as she dodged a lightning strike aimed at her, and quickly surveyed the rest of the team. Her whole team was staggering. How had she not noticed? She summoned Ammaterasu and ran over so they were all close to her.

"Mediarama."

Chie cried out in pain as burns on her arms and legs were forced to blister and then covered with healthy skin, while Kanji did his best to act tough, though his knuckles were white from how tight he was gripping his chair.

Yu took it the worst. He had life forced into frostbitten parts of his body, electrical and fire burns healed, cuts sewn up, and Yukiko cringed as she heard the sickening sound of a joint popping back into place. Yukiko heard in her mind, "What are you doing? Can't you see how much pain they're in?"

Yukiko felt awful every singe time she had to cast a healing spell on her team mates as the accelerated recovery hurt more then the attack most times. Rise's inexperience and naiveté did not help her one bit. "I'm well aware, Rise-chan. There's no other way to heal them."

Once they were finished, Yu walked over to Yukiko. "I know you don't like it. None of us want to make you do it, but you're the only one we can count on." She hated that truth. She could cast healing spells on everyone, which Yosuke couldn't do, and she had more magic than anyone else. "This area's clear of Shadows. Do you need a moment?"

She was far too kind-hearted to give her friends pain, and yet it was her assigned role. Every time, her Persona became fore and more of a curse. As she fought with them, she got stronger. As she got stronger, her healing got stronger. And that meant she could heal more injuries faster, which just hurt others more. She had spent many a night crying about it, but she buried those thoughts.

"I'm alright. Yu-kun. Let's keep going."

If she had to die inside to keep her friends alive, so be it.


End file.
